


Son

by MorganLeBae



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Genre: Gen, TW: Blood, tw: gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 07:25:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2183025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorganLeBae/pseuds/MorganLeBae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the kink-meme prompt: "Yondu has lots of houses, scattered amongst the different planets. He uses them for hide-outs, places to go if he or his crew needs anything they can't get on the ships, places to take time off, etc. One day (post-Guardians) Peter gets injured in a fight. He's lost track of the other Guardians and needs a place to get his bearings. He thinks that the cut isn't too bad and just needs some first-aid. He knows that Yondu has a place near by and, seeing as the chances of him being there are slim, decides to risk a break-in to treat his wound and find a way to call the Guardians.<br/>However, the wound's worse than he thought and whether through blood loss or infection, Peter passes out before he can let anyone know where he is. Whether through alarms that Peter was too out of it to remember to disable or just being in the area, Yondu comes back and finds Peter lying on his bathroom floor."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Son

He was just coming away from picking up a payment when the faint little beeping sounded. He could tell from the tone it wasn’t a serious problem – from the fact it beeped at all, where his crew could hear it, without giving him the chance to mull it over in private. But he hadn’t gotten to where he was by ignoring the details, so he pulled it right up on his interface.

An alarm had gone off in one of his bunkers. One of the more remote ones. Well that was…just confusing enough to put him on edge. There was nothing important in any of them, he made sure of that. But who’d know enough about him to know where they were?

Well, he could think of one person. His fist tightened on the arm of his chair. Right next to his ornaments where a funny little troll was now taking pride of place. He’d had no choice but to put another bounty – double the previous one – out on Peter…but if the boy was trying to steal from him _again_?

There were only so many insults a man could take. He might just need to sort out that problem sooner rather than later.

He glanced around to see Kraglin staring at him across the deck. There was enough respect between them that his first mate didn’t jump and pretend he hadn’t been looking.

“Problem, Captain?”

Yondu considered, tapping his fingers slightly on the armrest. A habit he’d picked up from Peter. That a lot of them had picked up.

It might not be Peter, of course. In which case it might be an idea to check the situation out on his own, before getting the crew involved. And if it _was_ Peter – well, the crew tended to get a little excitable about that particular subject, and exactly what he should or shouldn’t do about it. He’d prefer to deal with that situation on his own too.

“Maybe,” he said, standing up. “I should go check it out at least.”

“Alone?”

“Yeah. I can handle this one.”

His eyes suddenly narrowed at Kraglin, before a small smirk appeared on his face.

“I can trust you to look after things, can’t I? Keep the crew from getting… _grabby_ over their share?”

Kraglin smiled right back at him.

“Of course, Captain.”

That was what he liked to hear.

Yondu left the bridge. It might well be just some scumsucker trying their luck on what they thought was a random place, in which case it’d be a rude awakening for them. But he didn’t really believe in coincidences, and he certainly didn’t believe in ignoring them.

He pressed a hand to the arrow under his jacket and wondered exactly what kind of reunion he might be heading into.

* * *

It didn’t take him long to get to the bunker, few hours maybe. When it came to ship parts, they made sure to steal only the best. He was hoping to get back before the crew got any serious ideas about rioting.

He examined the door as he walked up to it. No signs of forced entry, or marks on it of any kind. His list of suspects continued to narrow down to just one. He punched in the code, and the door hissed open. It hadn’t been changed, then. Optimism, or blind stupidity? He’d sincerely hoped he’d gotten rid of any scrap of the former in the last few decades. But the boy just kept surprising him.

He pulled his coat back as he went down the stairs, silently, but he didn’t activate the arrow just yet. He wouldn’t give it up for anything, but it sure was hard to sneak up on a man while whistling. And if Peter had anything about him at all, he’d know someone had just opened the front door. So any element of surprise would be a bonus.

There was no sign of Peter in any of the first few rooms he checked. But when he reached the supply room, he found a smear of red blood on the wall. He paused over it for half a second.

Suddenly the silence in the bunker seemed like it might not just be a game between them.

A glance into the room showed that a box of med supplies was missing. The items all around the gap were shoved haphazardly out of the way and there was another smear of red on the shelf.

It didn’t mean anything, of course, he figured, continuing to check the rest of the rooms with his coat still pulled aside. Peter knew how to take care of himself – he’d had more than enough practise growing up. He could have easily patched himself up and be waiting quietly for a chance to get the first shot in. Or any his friends could be waiting for him, while Peter was recuperating. If he was a little quicker about checking the rest of the rooms – while still being careful – that was no-one’s business but his.

Peter was on the floor in the washroom.

He gave it a half-second of waiting for an attack. In that time he took in Peter’s half-undressed state, naked from the waist up, and the red covering his side and the floor and his hands, and how very still he was lying. He checked each corner behind the door, and then he crossed the room and dropped to one knee.

He put a hand on Peter’s side, and felt it rise and fall with a breath. Other than that he didn’t move at all. The blood looked like it’d come from a long gash through his side, a set of trailing, pulled stitches dangling from one end of it. The blood was still coming, but it was oozing slowly now, at least. It had obviously eased off in the last few hours, and given the state Peter was in that was a genuine piece of luck.

“Peter,” he said urgently, slapping Peter’s face. “ _Peter_.”

His skin was red hot all over. Yondu had read up on Terran anatomy over the years, like a good Captain ought, and he was no medic, but he knew how hot was too hot. So it was infection too.

“Shit, boy.”

Peter’s brow twitched a little as Yondu kept slapping him, which was good. At least there was something left to save. Other than that, he just lay there as oblivious as he’d ever been to all the things Yondu did to try to keep him in continuing working order. There was a bruise forming on his forehead where Yondu would guess he’d hit the sink on his way down. He was so pale.

So this was the great glorious future he’d left the Ravagers for. Yondu glanced around. The bag of med supplies was laying just behind Peter’s body, half the contents dragged out and smeared with blood, strewn over the floor. His coat and soaked red shirt lay in a trail from the door to his mask, left by the toilet where he’d likely been sitting.

His new friends, on the other hand, were nowhere to be seen. Figured.

Yondu cursed and reached for the bag of supplies.

* * *

Three hours later he was sat in a chair by the bed he’d wrangled Peter into. Been a long time since he’d had to do that, and even longer since he could pick him up bodily, no trouble at all.

Technically it was his bed, in the room he’d intended for himself when he’d set this place up, but he wasn’t about to begrudge Peter that. The fever was still raging in him, though Yondu had given him antibacterials which he hoped would clean the problem up before too long. It seemed pretty ridiculous that the best cure Terrans had come up with for something so deadly to them was a wet cloth, but for now it was all he had, and it did seem to do the trick. He’d seen some further talk of ice baths for more severe situations, but he was hoping it wouldn’t come to that.

He’d stitched the cut as soon as he got him on the bed, and gave him a shot of marrow boosters to boot. The colour was almost completely back in his face, so all he needed to do now was ride out the infection.

Yondu was entertaining himself, in between smoothing the cloth over Peter’s forehead every few minutes or when his body jerked particularly badly, by trying to imagine just how he’d ended up in this situation. The clumsily parked fighter outside the bunker belonged to him, he assumed, so he’d obviously gotten separated from the Milano. Had his new colleagues abandoned him? Turned on him? Had he pissed them off so much they’d thrown him out, and he was going solo now? Hard to imagine he’d turn on _them_ and not take his ship – but that was the possibility Peter had the most history with, to be fair.

He watched Peter’s face, twitching with delirium, and decided the least appealing option was the one where his friends just plain didn’t know where he was. He couldn’t say he approved of Peter’s change in company – but he figured they’d at least keep an _eye_ on him. Those great new bonds of honour and friendship, and all.

You don’t raise a man for twenty-six years and then hope to stand by and watch as someone else just throws him away.

Peter suddenly tossed his head, as he’d been doing on and off for the past few hours, and then actually opened his eyes all the way. For a moment he just stared at the ceiling, unseeing. Then his eyes rolled a little in their sockets, and then they started to roam hazily around the room.

Eventually they hit Yondu – and fixed.

“Hello Peter,” he said, as much to himself as the man on the bed.

For a few seconds Peter just frowned at him, uncomprehending. And then he saw a spark or recognition in his eyes. Peter huffed a laboured breath, and then tensed up like he was about to start flailing.

Smart boy.

Yondu reached out calmly with one hand, and ran it smoothly through Peter’s hair.

“Hail, hail,” he sang, lowly. “What’s the matter with your hair? Yeah.”

It wasn’t hard to pick up, over the years.

Peter stilled and stared at him for one moment of perfect confusion.

“What’s the matter with your mind and your sign? And a, oh, oh, oh-a…”

Peter held on for a second longer, and then sagged back down into the pillow. He let out the breath he’d taken, and it seemed to deflate him entirely. His eyelids started to flutter.

Yondu dipped his fingers into the bowl of water, and then ran them through Peter’s hair again.

“What’s the matter with you? Feel right. Don’t you feel right baby…?”

No threats here. Nothing to need to be awake for. 

Peter finally closed his eyes again and slipped back down into sleep.

* * *

Five hours later the heat in Peter had finally died down, and he was sleeping soundly. Every one of his muscles was limp with his exhaustion, but his breathing was deep and even. Rest was all he needed now.

Yondu stared at him as he slept.

He remembered all the times he’d done so when Peter was younger. When he’d frightened himself into exhaustion just after they’d picked him up, and Yondu was worried about the risk to his cargo. You could never tell with the isolated species just how their nervous systems were going to react. Even with his daddy’s DNA in there. Maybe especially because of that.

And then later, when he worked himself stupid doing ship’s maintenance or background tasks for a job. Everyone in the Ravagers had to pull their weight if they wanted to get fed, and Peter took that to heart more than most, especially with all the threats to eat him going around. It made him the man he was today.

He needed to decide what he was going to do about Peter.

He ought to – he ought to take him back to the ship and kill him. Right where the crew could see, make sure the message about betrayal got through loud and clear. Have done with the whole business. But something irked him about fixing Peter up just to take him to slaughter.

He drummed his fingers on the chair again, as Peter slept the sleep of the innocent. He could let him run, just this _one_ time – but where would he go? He had no friends, no supplies, likely no units, and just that little fighter that was half-broken down. Which amounted to nothing, especially in this sector of the galaxy.

Almost seemed kinder to shoot him here.

A part of him, that hated treacherous little part he tried not to think about very often, wished he could reach inside Peter’s skull and scrape out everything that had come since they went looking for that orb, the Kyln, fighting Ronan, everything. Every memory of that, and just take him home, take him back to the ship, since he obviously couldn’t cope on his own, and get things back to how they used to be. Let the crew get over it.

But Peter was planning to leave even then. So, even if he could, what would be the point?

He ought to decide what to do now, while Peter was sleeping, and healed up. But the fact was Peter wouldn’t be in any shape to travel or fight for at least a day, so unless he really _was_ going to shoot him here – which he’d decided he wasn’t – there wasn’t any need to decide right now. So he decided not to think about it.

* * *

It was another two hours before Peter stirred genuinely, and cracked his eyes open. Took him a little while to come round fully, but this time his eyes were clear. He shifted around and took in the pillow, and then the bed. He blinked and looked up and met eyes with Yondu, still in the chair.

Yondu smiled at him.

“Morning,” he said.

Peter froze. His eyes flicked down and then up again. The arrow was still covered up, and there was no gun. Yondu could see the gears turning in his head as he tried to take in the situation, while very subtly moving backwards.

He closed his eyes suddenly, wincing.

“Alarms,” he said, voice scratchy.

“Yep. Thought I taught you better than that, boy.”

“I was –” he started, and then gave up. “I didn’t think I’d be here that long,” he muttered.

He looked up again and glanced at the doorframe, then back at Yondu. Yondu let his silence speak for him. It was just them here.

Peter shifted experimentally on his side, testing the wound. His eyes flicked back up to Yondu, confused and assessing.

“Care to explain how you got yourself into this predicament?” Yondu asked, leaning back lazily.

Peter sighed, and looked away.

“I was getting information,” he said. “I was on radio silence with the others till I was done. Things went south, I ended up fighting my way out of there. I missed the rendezvous, and didn’t want to lead anyone to them by broadcasting openly, so I just ducked out of there for a while. I came here to…”

“…Dip into my supplies?”

“Oh, come on, when do you ever even use this place?”

He seemed to wish he could take that remark back, given the circumstances, and went quiet again.

“How long was I…?”

“The alarm went off about fourteen hours ago, by my count.”

Peter stared up at the ceiling.

“They’ll be looking for me,” he said quietly.

“They haven’t found you.”

Peter was silent again. He looked back over at Yondu, and then brushed a hand against his side. His gaze turned uncertain for a second, then hardened again. Just like he’d been taught.

“So what now?” he asked, quiet.

“Well,” Yondu replied, conversationally, “I’ve got a bounty out on you. And it’d save me some money to just bring you in myself. You’ve stolen from me twice now, and now you owe me a bag of med supplies. And a set of sheets.”

Peter looked back at him, unflinching. Yondu grinned crookedly at him, and stood, brushing imaginary dust from his pants and coat.

“So let’s just see where this goes. I’m going to go get some sleep now. Don’t get any funny ideas – the bunker’s locked and you’ll pull those stitches again if you try to get up.”

He sauntered over to the door, and grinned back at Peter’s resentful face.

“Sleep well.”

He locked the door behind him.

* * *

When he woke up a few hours later, Peter and all his things were gone. So was the crappy fighter.

Yondu smiled.


End file.
